Tuesday, September 15, 2009

This bread completely reaffirms my love of no-knead breads. This is super tasty, but so much more work, and produces a completely different kind of bread. It takes about 3 hours from start to finish, which is of course much faster than the no-knead kind, but also requires a solid 30-40 minutes of actual work time, plus WAY more cleanup.

It does make a really soft, fluffy bread, though. I'm pretty sure it will make fantastic sandwiches.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

These were kind of disappointingly cakey, although I should've realized that ahead of time just by seeing that there is an entire teaspoon of baking soda. C'est la vie... I suppose every cookie can't be perfect.

3. Put peanut butter balls into freezer for 30 minutes; when they are chilled, they are less oily and the chocolate sticks better.

4. In double boiler, melt chocolate chips and shortening. Stir until smooth. If, like me, you don't have a double boiler, put a metal bowl over a barely simmering pot of water.

5. Using a toothpick, dip each peanut butter ball into chocolate.

Put back on waxed paper; refrigerate until chocolate is set. Transfer to covered containers; chill until serving.

Notes: You may have to transfer the peanut butter balls back into the freezer periodically as they warm up to room temperature; it's probably best to work in batches. Also, this will take over your fridge; make sure you have room BEFORE you are trying to rig up shelves using beer bottles and cookie sheets. It's less stable than I thought.

Also, you will end up with extra melted chocolate; have other things to dip on hand, like strawberries or pretzels.

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

As fond as I am of Jiffy corn muffin mix, sometimes it's nice to have a heartier cornbread that doesn't double as dessert. Especially along with chili.

This made a super dense, savory corn bread.

From How to Cook Everything, using more or less the 'Corny Corn Bread' variation. I'm quite excited to try the 'Bacon Corn Bread' listed right under it, but thought it might be a bit rich with chicken chili.

Put butter in pan or skillet; heat on stove (if pan is stovetop safe) or in oven (if not). It will melt and turn all nutty smelling; take it off of the heat before it burns.

Mix together dry ingredients in a bowl; mix the egg into the buttermilk. Stir the buttermilk mixture into the cornmeal mixture. Stir in the corn.

Pour the batter into the pan; bake for 30 minutes.

NOTE: Yes, the milk with vinegar looks icky and smells weird. It's sour milk; it's supposed to. (Sadly, the picture of the lumpy milk-- white lumps in a white liquid-- did not come out on my little point and shoot.)